My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (23 page)

DAY NINETEEN-SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 2 000

Our God is a God of healing. He is a mender, a fixer of broken things. And we need such a God, because we tend to break and spoil much of what we touch. When we allow Him to come into our fretful hearts, He works quietly and gently; and with the skill of a tender craftsman, He begins the work of restoring what is lost.

FROM
HUGS FOR THE HURTING
JOHN SMITH

Again Brian came home in the evening. It was the fourth evening in a row. We shared a nice meal together as a family and then watched the hockey game. Brian certainly seemed pleased with the newly installed cable.

In spite of the progress we were making, Brian still seemed distant and aloof, and I was very unsure of where I stood. Yet I sensed that perhaps we had had a breakthrough, perhaps Brian was home because he was making a decision to stay home with me.

But then maybe he was just saving the money he would otherwise be spending on a hotel. After all, I didn’t doubt that our home was more pleasant than a hotel room, especially considering the special treatment he was receiving.

I hung around Brian whenever he was home, catering, as best I could, to his every whim.

After several hours of watching television together we went to bed.

Brian was fully clothed, and I wore a modest nightgown.

I really didn’t know how to behave or what to do. I wondered, of course, what was happening with us, yet I dared not ask. We lay there quietly, staring at the canopy above us.

Finally Brian broke the silence and announced in a sad tone, “Well, I guess I’m home.”

“I’m really glad Brian,” I said.

Then we continued to lie in our silence. There was no big hug, no feeling of reconciliation. It all felt dry and cold.
So I had gotten what I had fought for or not ? My husband was back. Shouldn’t my pain be going away? Shouldn’t I feel loved once again? I felt anything but loved right now. Where were the flowers? Where was the begging for my forgiveness?

“I’m sorry for everything,” he said next. But it sounded like he said it more out of duty than out of love for me. I didn’t sense he felt genuine remorse for what he’d done.

“So that means you’ve decided to stay with me and work out our relationship?” I asked.

“Yeah.” he said, looking anything but happy.

I needed to know one more thing. “Brian, last night on the phone, were you breaking up with Helen?”

“Yes,” he replied sounding as if he hadn’t really wanted to.

I felt happy to have won this victory, but the reality of the fact that

I was just beginning a journey to healing rather than ending it was starting to sink in. I was still engulfed in pain and questions:
Does he still love me? How could this have happened?

DAY TWENTY-SUNDAY, JUNE 4, 2 00 0

When we awoke in the morning, Brian was withdrawn. He didn’t talk, look at me or smile. He was unaffectionate and kept his distance.

This was not the homecoming I had envisioned. No great apologies or red roses.

What have I done?
I wondered.
Do I even want him back, when he’s all depressed and gloomy? How will we ever get better? Now what of my future? Can anyone help me? Does anyone understand how I feel?

Brian was not willing to come to church with us that morning. In a way, I didn’t blame him. I could understand how difficult it would be to go there and face the people in our congregation who did know what was going on.

Yet, I felt that he should own up to his mistake. I wondered where he stood with his faith, this common ground that had meant so much to us throughout our marriage.

As far as I was concerned, we were currently not married. The vows were not only broken, but they had been declared null and void. I wondered if Brian would reinstate them. Now that he had chosen to come home, would he renew his sacred promise to me?

I had become a more independent person over the past nineteen days. I would no longer be making decisions based on what I thought Brian wanted. It was my desire to go to church so I would go with or without him. I would face whatever humiliation I might, going alone and making excuses for his absence.

We had experienced a lot of rain over the past month, but driving home from church, I was pleased to see the sun had broken through the clouds. Weather-wise, it was a glorious day.

Yet when I arrived home, I found Brian watching sports in our basement rec room with the curtains drawn.

I wanted to be with him. I tried to sit with him for a while, but I struggled with it immensely. I still did not understand most sports well enough to be drawn into the entertainment. Besides I was consumed with thoughts about where our relationship was at, why this had happened and what our future held.

I wanted to talk, but the timing seemed wrong. I longed for the bright sunshine outside, so I left the basement. Eventually, Brian did come to join me outside to do some yard work. To anyone driving by, we might have appeared to be a normal family, enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon in June. Yet things were anything but normal. Yes, our family was back together, but we had a long way to go. Would we make it?

That evening, our friends Vincent and Alexandra invited us over for a barbecue. While we were there, Brian and I did not discuss our situation with them at all. We were there to have fun and be together as a couple.

However, Brian did not display any of his usual kindness towards me. He was cool and distant. It was obvious to our friends that Brian was still not treating me well, in spite of my efforts to forgive him and accept him back into my life.

Alexandra knew all about my fast and was concerned about my health, worried that I was headed for an ongoing eating disorder. She pointed out that my “fasting and praying” efforts had already netted the desired results: Brian was back in my life.

So that evening, at her insistence, I had my first small meal in weeks. I was afraid of the food and afraid of getting fat. I had lost sixteen pounds in twenty days and worried that even one pound gained would drive Brian away.

One might have thought that on the next morning, I would start to eat again having broken the fast the night before. I did not. I had become afraid to eat. I continued my partial fast with my fruit and

meal replacement drinks.

DAY TWENTY—FOUR-THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2 000

Helen phoned Brian to tell him that she didn’t think they should speak to each other anymore. Funny that she felt a need to announce it suddenly, when in fact they had not spoken since their split six days prior. The fact that Brian told me about his conversation with Helen was en exciting step forward. With this new openness, he was slowly gaining my trust again.

DAY TWENTY—FIVE-FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 2 0 00

When Brian came home from work, I joined him in the bedroom to talk to him about his day.

“Helen phoned me twice today,” he said.

“Wow, I thought she just called you yesterday and said that she didn’t think you two should talk to each other again,” I said.

“I know,” said Brian, “I think she might have just been saying that yesterday because she was mad that I hadn’t called her.

“What did she say to you today?”

“She’s really mad at me for coming home to you.” I was fuming back at her, but working hard to keep my anger hidden from Brian.
How ironic is that?
I thought.
She thinks it’s okay to steal my husband ofeighteen years, but it’s wrong for him to return, home to his wife and family!

‘You know what she actually said to me?” Brian continued.

“What?”

“She said, ‘How dare you have sex with your wife!?!?’”

I was astonished, incredulous, amazed.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” I said. “She thinks it’s wrong for you to sleep with your wife whom you’ve made a sacred and legal lifetime vow to, but okay for you to sleep with her?”

“Yeah, well she kept trying to get me to go along with this agreement that we wouldn’t have sex with our spouses anymore.”

“Did you agree to that?”

“Well sort of,” said Brian. “I didn’t really want to, but she kept pressuring me. It was ridiculous.”

The nerve!
I thought,
Here this woman is trying to break up my marriage and manipulate my husband into promising not to have sex with me. She is some piece of work!

“What else did she have to say?” I asked.

“She’s putting a lot of pressure on me to leave you,” Brian said. “She keeps telling me I need to get my own apartment and think about things for awhile, but I don’t want my own apartment. I’m sick and tired of other people trying to tell me what I should do.”

Then Brian told me that Richard had beaten Helen, and she had wanted Brian to come and rescue her, but he told her to call the police instead. Richard ended up spending a day in jail, with a restraining order against him, and Helen was referred to victim services for support. It was a complete mess.

So this is how the glamour and fantasy of an affair ends,
I thought.
From ecstasy to disaster, like a mouse eating the cheese just before the trap snaps shut with disastrous results.

Helen seemed to be living in a world different than the one Brian and I lived in. A world where no marriages last, commitment is a short-term thing, and you eventually toss your spouse aside for another. She had bargained that once she had slept with my husband, I would be so angry that I would toss him out and make her takeover easy.

She had not bargained for either my forgiveness or my fight. Simply put, she tried to take over the wrong man. Yet, my war was far from over. Brian did care for her, and I would have to be very careful and very wise in how I conducted myself.

Somehow Brian’s relationship with Helen had to be completely severed.

DAY TWENTY—SIX-SATURDAY, JUNE 1 0, 2 0 00

On this day I began to eat again. I did so very slowly, eating only very healthy foods and only very small quantities. The total length of my fast had been twenty-five days. I had lost sixteen pounds and reached my ideal weight. In my pain, I had drawn the false conclusion that my weight was crucial to the success of my marriage. I feared that if I gained even one pound back, Brian might divorce me.

As we sat talking in our living room in the evening, the phone rang. It was Helen’s husband Richard, yelling at Brian.

“If you would like to talk to me, I would be happy to,” Brian said. “But you’re going to have to get a grip on yourself. Look, if you’re just going to scream profanities at me, I don’t think this is going anywhere.”

Finally he hung up without saying good-bye.

I looked across at my husband, the man that I loved, and admired his restraint. He looked pensive, remorseful and pained.

DAY TWENTY—SEVEN-SUNDAY, JUNE 1 1, 2 000

After having a full and intense work day, Brian came home in the evening and said he wanted to take me out. I reacted excitedly. I was a changed person.

In the past, I might have questioned him, asking if we could really afford it. But I would never pose such a question again. Money matters were up to him. I knew that if I questioned him spending his hard earned profits on me, he may well spend them on another who wouldn’t complain.

I also dared to dress sexier than ever before. I chose a tight-fitting short denim skirt and a snug and slightly low-cut red top to go with it. I took the time to do all that I could to look like a “babe.” In the past, my look would have been more conservative. Pretty yes, but not so sexy.

Brian looked impeccable as always.

We drove to a small sea-side city not far from Brian’s current work site. He took me to a romantic seafood restaurant that specialized in oysters.

He talked about some of the people and projects that made up his work day, and I felt like I was becoming a part of his life again. I resolved that I would never let the cares of my daily existence pull me away from Brian again. I would never get so caught up in details that I stopped having fun with my husband.

We enjoyed the wine and the oysters together and managed to just have fun. After dinner we took a walk along the beautiful seaside. We talked and enjoyed the warm summer air.

“You know,” Brian said. “I now see the one really big difference between you and Helen.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Helen is being totally selfish, thinking only of what’s best for her. You are selfless,” he said. “All the time I have been married to you, you have been thinking only of what’s best for everyone else.”

These honestly shared insights brought us even closer together and led to another evening of unprecedented intimacy, tenderness and passion between us. Our love reunited again, we just couldn’t seem to get enough of each other.

DAY TWENTY—EIGHT-MONDAY, JUNE 1 2, 2 0 00

In the evening, I took my daughters out to see a movie. I wanted to connect with them and see how they were coping. I could see that Tamara was at peace and happy, satisfied to know that her father had decided not to leave her after all. Danielle, on the other hand, was not doing so well. It was clearly going to take some time with her, and I wasn’t going to rush it. Pain like this doesn’t go away overnight. Only time, coupled with understanding and acceptance, can eventually work the miracle of healing.